Friday, March 31, 2017

Creativity. Just
creativity. So important for the student, as well as for the teacher. Thinking
is creative. Otherwise it is not thinking.

We teachers have to teach our
students to think, and not just knowledge. We should dedicate part of the
class, or a school subject to thinking, as I had in the school where I taught
in Jaén, south of Spain, 1993 through 2002. Or the whole class, better said,
should be dedicated to thinking. That school subject had interesting topics and
contents, of an interdisciplinary nature, this is, involving several subjects
or areas.

Learning has to be creative. Otherwise it’s not learning. As well
creativity is important for teaching. A teaching that is not creative is not
teaching. Your teaching is creative, if you're reading this.

But let’s focus now on the student. He has
to invent ways for learning. The ones which are okay with him. And they’re
useful and helpful for real learning.

When learning and acquiring a second or
foreign language, the student, if assisted by his teacher, will create the ways
that are okay with real learning and acquiring. This is much of trying doing
things and saying if they’re okay or not: this is okay with my learning, and that
has to be discarded!

You could think all this is a bit difficult at everyday
learning, but actually is what good students do. And it may be the exact ways
you used when learning as a student. Successful students are aware they use
learning strategies and they also know, and this is pretty important, that
they’re good learners. / Photo from: IMG_0957 underground sailingvoyage com

Thursday, March 30, 2017

I was going to write
about the social media in the classroom, do you remember?

And I’ve remembered
an anecdote or story of my mid-90s of last century. Emailing was starting. And
we in our school thought of communicating with students over the Atlantic, with
students from the US. Said and done. All regarding emailing was starting, as I
said, and so another teacher, one expert at computing, assisted me in this nice
enterprise.

Now emailing is so basic, but then communicating with overseas was
all a historic fact.

So first I had to take all my class to the computing
classroom, where my students composed their texts on the computers, both in
English – for them to practice English, our common target language – and in
Spanish, for the American students to learn and acquire that language.

Summing
up, my colleague compiled all the texts and sent them to the concerted American
school in a single email. You know, my students were expecting their emails,
from the US! I took their American emails and read them out in the classroom,
where my students were expectant and looking forward to hearing from their
American comrades. And there you have the story.

How did we find another school
overseas? That was part of a mystery for me: my colleague teacher had
previously found kind of a school posting on a virtual noticeboard that they
wanted to exchange emails with somebody else on the earth. We had fun. / Photo
from: iguazu-forest Excursiones en Iguazú. The picture is just an illustration.
But you may think our enterprise was also hazardous…

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

If you’re not
integrating social media into your class, you’re ignoring one of the most
powerful forms of literacy in the world today.

I copied that quote a couple
days ago. I’ve got to admit I’m not a digital native, first premise. For I was
born in 1969 (!). I was born when computers were being made smaller for the
trips to the Moon (!). Up to then a computer might take up a whole room (!).

Anyway I should listen to that quote and I want to.

A second premise should be
that we’ve got to boost our students into the social media in the classroom
too. Also by taking into account that in some way we teachers should filter the
social media contents our students are about to watch in the Web. Because they
should focus on the topics to search about.

I was going to write about the
consequences of that quote of the beginning of this article, but you may be
(for sure!) younger than me and may be integrating your students into the
social media. Up to today what I do with my adult students regarding the new
technologies is making them look up some word in an online dictionary in their
smartphones, and a bit else. What to do then?

By the way I shouldn’t say “new
technologies” when most of you readers may be using them since you were
conscious as young children. It’d be different if I had kids in my classes –
currently I teach grown-ups, except in summer, when I assist at
English-language camps for boys. Well, I’ve got to stop here. On next post I’ll
try to write a bit more on this issue: social media as the way of getting into
modern literacy. / Photo from: www pinterest com. The picture is a nice
illustration.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Lessons with grown-ups
are great! Besides those lessons enrich the teacher too and for a great deal,
because the students have many things to tell you, also after the lesson or at
recesses. And from the way they work they can teach you a lot. It’s my case now.

As well those lessons take them somehow to their young age, when they were
kids or young people, but now with a lot more of experience and a way of learning and acquiring
which is nice, plus some learning strategies that make them some of the best
students ever.

Moreover those lessons, in themselves, make those people become
more active intellectually and that makes for it.

Those lessons encourage them
and move their mood, and provide a taste of youth, when they were young. If
they’re retired people those classes take them out of home and make them relate
with other people. Adults may be some of the best students I’ve had.

Still they
can do many great things of course, and those lessons can help them do things for
the community and for other adult people, like asking questions in the target
language to one another in the classroom – questions are often asked by the
teacher but the students also have to practice making questions in English, our
common target language.

Something interesting too: we speak in English both
before and after the lessons, so the classroom is kind of a piece of land where
English is spoken, like from an English-speaking country! Most of them have
traveled abroad and have been to countries where English is spoken, so they can
conduct in English! / Photo from: Black Box Vending

Tentatively I’m
not posting today, well maybe later. But you can read my previous posts: I said
a lot on them. Like I said maybe I’m posting later. Have a nice day!/ Photo from:Bicycle-Safety-On-The-Road
AAA Exchange

Monday, March 27, 2017

The only way for our
students to learn and acquire the target language or any other school subject is
to make up a cozy, human and humane atmosphere in the classroom. But this is
compatible with discipline, class management, and hard working. Of course it
is.

We teachers have to treat our students also in a transcendent way: let’s
consider people, or persons, have a spiritual part of their being. Even more,
they’re children of God, and not less than that! Let’s treat our students with
a supernatural view. That’s the only way for treating them okay and nice, and
as they deserve.

If we see people, persons, souls, we shall be able to treat
our students in an appropriate way, corresponding to their nature, and
according to their way of being.

If I’m a man, and have to teach a girl, a beautiful
one – or otherwise if she were rather ugly anyway – I should view in her a
child of God and a person with a spiritual part and a biography that I have to
contribute in a nice, prudent and respectful way – of course I could think she’s
beautiful too.

Currently I teach both men and women, and I must treat them with
exquisite respect, the one a human person deserves. And with deference.

Okay,
Fernando, but is all that not too much theoretical or non-practical? You know,
when addressing them I must be prudent and nice, and I should learn how to
appreciate their targets and right answers to my prompts as a teacher, and
subsequently congratulate them in a nice way.

A point of humor: I’m using and
overusing the word “nice” too much, but in my communicative competence in
English I can’t find another nice word…

Summing up: I must recognize their
efforts and strivings and struggling to learn and acquire English and have got
to tell them, Okay people, you’re doing so fine, and you’re improving a lot, my
congrats! I will treat those people as clever ones. And with prudence,
discernment and judgment. / Photo from: Bus-stop throughmyspecs com. Although
on the picture there are many people, all of them deserve my particular and
individual respect.

If we teachers
treat our students politely and respectfully, more likely we’ll be respected
too. Or over time maybe. As simple as that. It’s something I’ve seen, as you
may have seen too.

Teens may tend to be disruptive. Some or many of them at
least, okay. But even they themselves are confused about themselves. They don’t
understand themselves. For example one adolescent may reply a bit harsh to his
teacher, but quite often maybe he pretty soon realizes that his answer was not
nice.

I can remember myself that when I was a kid, some 14 years, one day one of
my high school or secondary education teachers asked me why I looked tired and
with my head between my hands and if I was okay, and I told him – he was a nice
person and very honorable – that at that moment my head seemed heavy or
something like that – a rather silly reply you know, and after some time I
realized I had given him a silly and ugly answer.

Many of our teenager students
may be doing nonsense and silly things, but we adults should be patient with
them and take into account that we may be sowing seeds now that will spring in
the future and this is pretty remarkable: Who among us teachers, tell me, have
never hassled and caused some trouble either to our parents or our teachers or
both?

Let’s be nice but firm with our kid students and we’ll be hitting the
target on the very center. / Photo from: aviva-mile-challenge-girls-pic athleticsireland
ie. Those girls on the pic look nice people.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

The teacher? He or she is the main lesson
resource. If we want an effective teaching at our schools let’s take care of
the teachers.

Anyway at a school the order of assisting them should be the parents
and families, then the teachers, and then the students. I learned about this
when I was teaching at a school north of Granada, in the fantastic province of
Jaén, where people are so kind and nice...

My first years at that school were terrible,
but very instructive anyway: I learned what a teacher should not do, this is,
to be kind of a sergeant.

But today is Sunday and the weather is bright: I went
for a walk in shirt sleeves – do you say so? You know what I mean.

Well I was
saying that for a teacher one of the most important things is his or her family,
and he or she should devote as much time as possible to them, because teaching
is so demanding and time consuming. As you know, some many Sundays I don’t
post. Or a brief something, like today. I also wanted to see to a bugging
problem at my Blogger program. Have a nice Sunday and a nice week, nice people!
/ Photo from: what_is_creative_teaching NEA Today

Saturday, March 25, 2017

We teachers teach our
students, willingly and with professionalism. But do we receive something from
them? I think we do. We can learn how to be more human and humane when treating
those kids or those grown-ups.

I can tell you from my experience that treating
people, treating singular persons, enriches a lot. While we’re treating our
dear students – although sometimes they may make us suffer – we may be
polishing our personality and manners and ways of leading a lesson.

I think we
teachers receive a lot from our students. As I am telling on recent posts, we
teachers have to learn how to teach and treat people. And sometimes we’ll have
got to rectify something we’ve done wrong to some person. Maybe we might have
treated some student in a hard way, and perhaps we have got to rectify, maybe
in public, to ask that student for his forgiving.

Teaching can be one of the
most enriching jobs we can think of, though every profession is so necessary, of course. One
interesting point is to learn how to listen to our students and their personal
stories. We could make the resolution of being merciful with our students next lesson. /
Photo from: www floridajewishacademy org

Yesterday I said I
was posting on the point that the teacher has to be human and humane at his
teaching. Here you are.

The way he would interact with his students has to be
full of normal human reactions, at least up to some extent. I mean, the teacher
will lead the lesson according his students are interacting along the lesson,
in a nice way.

Let me think. For example, the teacher will stop to listen to a
student that is trying to say something that has entailed a lot of effort for
him or her to say, and which has to do with the thread of the lesson.

The teacher
will react in a human way, at least up to some extent, when addressing his
students, and he will prompt his students in a way which will help them advance
more in their learning processes. There will be empathy. He’ll say a word of
encouragement, and will say they’re doing well, if the case, and this is pretty
important.

The teacher cannot be a glacial model one can admire but not
imitate. In the classroom, at each lesson, the teacher will offer himself to
his students, in a full and thorough way, and eventually he’ll become tired
after this effort. You have to offer to your “audience” and as I said, and as a
result, you could get done and tired. “Entirely” is the word: you’ll offer to
your students entirely.

Well and if you have many lessons, you’ll have to
ration your forces. In Spanish we say something kind of “putting all the meat
on the barbecue grill”. So the teacher will dedicate his forces to his students
– and all these communicative skills with his students are gained over years,
with practice, experience and expertise. / Photo from: www shutterstock com. The
picture is just a nice illustration.

Friday, March 24, 2017

I dedicate this post to my Irish readers and so many of you who are in the US and Spain and all over the world. I miss Ireland quite much. - Be alert because I'm posting on the fact that the teacher has to be very human and humane, as you are. I'm posting on this maybe tomorrow, for I have not much time today. / Photo from Eskipaper, and it shows a cute Irish village, similar in some way to the places I've found in your lovely awesome country.

How to empathize. This is
sheer important for us teachers. And for many other people, but I’m focusing on
us teachers. We deal with… people every day and not with goods!

Okay then, we
should put in our students’ shoes. How? Let’s see. It springs from the person’s
interior, first of all, first premise. It’s a nice trait we should have or gain
anyway. We’re concerned about the students, and their lives and biographies and
learning processes.

Second premise, let’s listen to them whenever they’d like
to tell us something, albeit we could be in a bit of a hurry: be careful, because
one of the most important points about our job as teachers is raising all those
kids. Whatever we do and whatever we don’t influence on them.

When they’re
telling something they’re interested in that thing is quite important. We
should listen. And we could paraphrase as they’re telling about their problem. We
can paraphrase as they’re telling us that point. Also it’s kind of benevolence
love and a clever and smart affection: he’s one of our students!

Besides he’s a
son of God and not less than that! He so deserves being listened to. Let’s take
charge of what he's telling me and as well I could try to do something myself
maybe! Great Spanish teacher Tomás Alvira used to take charge of what the other
person was telling him, and he hit the target in that way.

Well you know I
could try to say other things but I don’t intend to be so exhaustive and
in-depth. It’s enough: our students all are great and deserve us listening to
them. / Photo from: Teacher M Mind42

Unemployment among
young people is so big, in Spain as well as in other many countries, as you know.

I don’t intend to be pessimistic and it is not my style, but that’s quite real.
We have some danger of a generation of people who have never worked with a
consistent job, is that so in your countries all over there in the Web?

And
there are quite many valuable people, potential teachers, who would do it well
as teachers. I pray this would change, and at the same time we have to work
well, be honest and upright, and we’ll be helping our western society, so much
in need of many things.

Let’s be honest and there will be more honest people,
each one in his or her position in society. I get glad when I see people
working on the street, or in offices, etc. They’re people who try to do things
well and that holds our western society, in this global world where we live.

So
unemployment is a big problem, also because work makes men and women be mature
and thorough people, right? In Spain the youth’s unemployment may be around
43%!! It’s disastrous. Let’s not be pessimistic or kind of negative. Let’s
empathize with this problem – better said, let’s empathize with all these
people, whenever we can address them and talk with them, and let’s listen to
them.

The thing in Spain is bettering somewhat, but the rate of unemployment is
still so high. Okay, think of today: let’s try to develop our work the best we
can do, let’s do our best, and so also we’ll be helping our whole society,
alike concerning terrorism.

And let’s not forget other people’s problems and
trouble, like namely the so many war refugees that have no home. What can we do
about all this? I’d say first praying, plus let’s see, I’d add, well, being
honest and honorable, plus being nice at home: if everybody did this, it’d be
much better, right? Oh, now I remembered some friends of mine are going to run
some care with refugees here in Granada: they run a parish church and they’re
about to also run some pastoral with refugees. / Photo from: footage framepool
com. The picture is just a nice illustration. A girl with her dog.

The teacher in the
classroom can be firm but should act gently, all the time. He’ll be moderate
but demanding and firm.

Behavior management has to be firm but gentle, polite
and nice. Because you love your students with benevolence love, which as you
may know means to wish what’s good for your students: bene-volence,
well-willing, willing what’s well.

I knew a teacher who was rather kind of a sergeant
with his young students, and that’s not the way. And he changed, and changed
his mind, and now his students rather love him, and wish what’s good for him.

We teachers have to strive to be direct and firm but gentle in
manners, which isn’t mannerism, in a pejorative way. You gain more with an
affectionate word than with thousand bad ways and manners. Behavior management
is wanted because the teacher wants what’s good for his students, for his real
and individual students. And this implies and entails addressing them in a nice
way, doesn’t it?

The teacher has to gain his students, not for adulation but
because he or she wills what’s good for his or her students. Also this implies
speaking in a moderate way and volume: you gain more with a rather low but firm
volume than by shouting, because among other reasons if we shout, what else can
we do then?

I knew another teacher that once said, in order to pacify his
class: Everyone has one point less in your last exam. Well then, what can they
do if some of them got 5, which is the pass grade in Spain, out of a total of
10? The kids that got 10 would have 9, but what about the kids that got 5? Are they
4 points, which mean fail?

In case you’ve got to apply some corrective
punishment or the like, think of something you CAN apply. However in case you’re
moderate but firm, punishments will be rare… In cases of offenses or
infractions better (maybe) the school admins should assign such punishment, I’d
rather propose.

Summing up, let’s be firm but gentle, and thus we’ll gain a
moral authority, also because of our professionalism in the classroom. / Photo
from: if-ladder_jaroslaw_hawrylewicz 2013 Everest Expedition International
Mountain Guides. The picture is just a nice and interesting illustration you
can enjoy.

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

He will insist on one planned activity if he
thinks it’d okay with his students, and will maybe skip another activity he had
planned, if he judges it’d good for his students’ learning the foreign or
second language.

He also knows how to encourage his students, when it’s
appropriate to recognize their effort and also how to denounce when his
students are not applying themselves to a correct learning approach or rhythm. As
I said he’ll encourage his students with both a smile but a serious gesture
too.

When denouncing something that is not going well anyway he’ll be and act
gently. It’s kind of conducting an orchestra. As well and this may be a bit
more difficult and skillful, he’ll know how to lift and hold on with the class
morale.

All this demands nice discernment from the teacher, and how to gain it?
I’d advise practice, practice, experience, experience, and in the meantime he
will try to do it all gently but firmly. Each lesson is a step forward, a brick
of the tall building of his students’ learning and acquiring the target language.
/ Photo from: TuoiTreNews Vietnamese students

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

The spiritual and supernatural resource and way may help a
lot. In today western society we need it. The point is to live as in dollar
bills is said: “In God we trust”. Spiritual life helps.

The point also is
having a transcendent view of life. I mean, transcendent viewing and thinking
too. It gives us peace at everyday work, at everyday living. You may think of a
teacher that has this transcendent vision of life: life may show a positive and
optimistic vision. Obviously our students may also have this vision of life,
which is so important today… as always anyway.

And parents and families alike.

Moreover
we know that we are children of God, and not less than that! And that helps a
lot, a great deal, as it’s been said. The power of prayer is fascinating. Think
of whom we pray to. He’s our Dad, with awesome love of dads and moms! I can
assure you living and working in this way is fascinating too – as many of you
also know. Or you can say: trying to live and work in this way, because we
always can do more.

So let’s lean on God and on his grace and help.

Oh, prayer
is powerful but we get things from our Father as they must be: sometimes we get
what we were looking for and sometimes otherwise: He keeps on listening to us.
All the time. / Photo from: Placement India

My senior students
– retired people – tell me sometimes they’re losing memory, up to what extent
is this? What I have clear in mind is that I make them train their memory, by
repeating exercises they do, like remembering points from past worksheets I hand
them out: they’ve got to recall their topics, their vocabulary, the main ideas,
their summaries.

This may be a plausible possible solution, up to some extent.

A
nice activity we do in the classroom – actually the center library – is defining and
saying the meaning of words from those worksheets. It is an activity where they’ve
got to remember notions and ideas, and manage their communicative oral
competence.

By the way this exercise may be carried out is various ways. For your
real students. For example they’ve got to define words by using a given word,
or if they have some more communicative competences and resources they could
have to define words WITHOUT a given word, which by far is much more difficult.

Thus the point here is that they’ve got to practice communicative oral
competences plus memory, because they’ve got to retrieve lexis they already
have. It can be a nice activity for your classes, for your students: give it a
try. They’ll gain nice skills for when they travel abroad or communicate with
native speakers for instance. / Photo from: WallpaperSafari. Fishing joins a
variety of skills together. The picture is a mere illustration.

Monday, March 20, 2017

We teachers have to
take advantage of our students’ best chances for learning creativity, this is,
to learn in a creative way.

We could facilitate our students enough time for
creativity, and so foster and boost their creativity whenever it’s simpler to
provoke. Sometimes our students are about to show their creativity, and we
teachers should take advantage of those times for our students to learn in that
creative way.

For instance we can set and assign project-works by teams, I
would advise of three people, as I’ve said on other posts. Specifically our
students might have got to search information and stuff about specific points
within the school subjects: math, science, literature, history, chemistry,
physics, sports, catechism classes, mother language classes…

Well namely it’s
like flipped classrooms: the students have to research about a specific point,
topic or issue, and after that studying process, they will present their
results and those topics themselves to their classmates in the classroom.

Also
they might have to make up a poster or a Powerpoint presentation.Now I can remember once my students, well two
of them aged 14 needed a whole class-period – about one hour – to talk about a
topic they had researched about (firearms), whereas their classmates needed
only a portion of a class-period – some 15 minutes.

The ultimate point, as I
said, is to foster their creativity, for this latter feature may catapult and
foster their learning quite a lot. I’m giving you some examples, within the
school subject of English as a foreign language: The parliamentary way of
governing the UK, The White House, The Victorian British Empire, Present simple and present
continuous, Reported speech in English, Comparison in that language, Traveling
and the airport and related vocabulary, Shopping, Speaking on the phone, World
War I in the UK, Gibraltar: a visit, The invention of soccer in Britain, Past
simple and present perfect, Going to a restaurant and its vocabulary, Turner’s
Painting, The Civil War in the USA… and a very long etcetera.

However you teacher oughtn’t to discard
presentations by yourself, for your students may need it too! And you teacher
will likely have to orientate your students’ researching in the Web for example,
at the flipped classroom methodology of learning. / Photo from: Turner s
Painting www treshark com

Sunday, March 19, 2017

We teachers cannot
forget we work with people, with singular persons, with singular human persons.
It’s evident but let’s think of it. So when we plan a lesson, which is
something we must do, planning lessons, we should have our real students in
mind, our actual students in mind, with their needs, their expectations, with
their ways of being.

Also something pretty enriching is the dialog with them in
the classroom, for example when there’s a small conflict or any tension. We teachers
have to learn how to listen to them, although immature we may think they are
still.

What’s important for them should be important for us their teachers.

Reading
books and novels is enriching but dialoging with human persons and coexisting
and loving them is much richer, is this so?

And let’s be human and humane for
we could have refugee children or kids among our students: let’s be affective
and attentive to their special circumstances. Let’s meet their parents and
families and let’s listen to them quite a lot. Listen, listen, listen.

We can also
learn about this from Pope Francis. He’s close to the human person, to any singular
human person: refugees, ex-prostitutes, sick people, poor people, families,
parents, single moms with their babies… He likes or chooses to be in contact
with real people, real persons. He has returned dignity to those people and
more many others. / Photo from: Spring-Forest wallsfield com. The picture is a mere
illustration, a season one: spring seems to be near.

Saturday, March 18, 2017

We foreign or second
language learners (and teachers too!) like to learn new words – tentatively! Also
our students have to learn new words, to have more resources and “weapons” to
communicate with native speakers as well as in the classroom, is that so?

Okay then,
in order to learn a new word we can enhance our memory by using that word. If you
use the word, more likely you’ll be able to retrieve that word for its using in
conversations, debate forums, etc.

Thus our students and we teachers-learners
will use the new word or words into a context, a meaningful one. In that way we’ll
remember those new words we’re learning. If there’s usage, there’s remembering.
No usage, no remembering – maybe.

Also we learners can play with the new words:
like writing sentences with them, and that’s something many students of mine
tell me they do. Also some students think of the word over and over, or they
revise the word mentally from time to time, kind of that. Or writing two columns: the foreign words and the native words, and hiding one of the columns and trying to remember either the foreign or the native words.

And something I sometimes
do is using the new word in sentences with grammar points I’m presenting to my
students. / Photo from: iss international space station over Gibraltar and Africa
www racineduweb com. The picture is a beautiful illustration. You may know that
Gibraltar is British land at the south point of Spain, opposite Africa. You should visit it!

Friday, March 17, 2017

We teachers should
be updated about education trends or research trends, more if they seem okay. What
I mean is that quite many teachers are trying the following working scheme. The
class plus the teacher would be a working team.

Anyway this does not mean the
teacher is secondary or minor role, or he cannot present topics, like for
example grammar patterns. The point is roping the class into a process of
learning: the students also are the main characters at this play.

The teacher
would boost their learning, for example by making them participate more, and also
by doing everything that would put them as protagonists of the lesson, together
with their teacher.

In other words the teacher would foster and boost his
students’ creativity. In the lesson there would be the teacher’s creativity
plus the students’ creativity too. The class with their teacher is like a
work-team or group. The trend is creating thinking classes, thinking
individuals. / Photo from: arion2render a Spanish rocket PLD Space. The picture
is an illustration but also it might show that you need a work-team if you want
any valuable results.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

We teachers should be
very human and humane with our students: with each and every student. Kids need
adults that would listen to themselves. And they have us: they should expect
we’re going to listen to them, in the classroom, at tutoring sessions, at the
school halls, at the playground.

As I said on the previous post we teachers
could be like their dads or moms. Be careful: we teachers might be the single
persons who could be listening to them. Maybe their parents are split or
engaged in busy businesses and don’t listen to them much. Maybe not anyway.

We
teachers have to make those parents realize they must listen to their kids.

All
this listening to them by us is pretty educative for students. Better if male
teachers would listen to boys at tutorials and the same concerning girls.

Even
more: we in some way must live for them, for any of them, and they’re part of
our reason we go to the school every day: we owe ourselves to them. They’re the
reason of our lives, partially at least. In some way we have to be like their
dads and moms. / Photo from: bloomboard com. The picture I suppose shows a father and his son, not a teacher anyway.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Let’s not tell off
our students nor reprimand them too severely. We should otherwise be cordial,
which is absolutely compatible with discipline and behavior management.

In that
way we’re behaving in a very very educative way concerning our students. Let’s
be merciful with them all. We can be against what’s not good, okay, but we
cannot be against anyone. I insist: let’s be merciful with our kids.

We should
forgive them, although we’ll be prone to teach them what’s upright and honest. If
we’re upset, let’s not reprimand them when hot, but better after some time or
on next day or so. We’ll gain more with an affectionate correction than with
thousand angry words.

Let’s give our students nice correction and advice for
their lives, now and when they are adults. Let’s not give them harsh
condemnation but okay with advice for their lives, now and when they’re
grown-ups, as I said.

Okay for benevolence love too, and all this gently pushes toward correction
and amendment. We can get serious in the face because the kid may be doing
something wrong and erroneous toward his life, but let’s not be harsh with the
students. He may be doing something bad for him and for his classmates and his teacher
alike, and that’s wrong.

We have to be like their dad or mom, in some way. Oh, and better the correction should be aside and not in public. /
Photo from:ayuntamiento-herrera-del-duque castillo de Herrera del
Duque. The picture is just a nice illustration, like nice our corrections must
be too. Herrera del Duque is a nice village in western Spain.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Phew! I’m back at the
blog. Here you are. I was thinking of writing something about the care toward
our planet we should educate our students at.

Something I used to do when we
ran an excursion was to throw all the garbage and litter to garbage containers.
Thus our students plastically learned how to take care of our environment.

Sometimes
I explained to them that for example plastic couldn’t get destroyed easily if
they threw plastic disposable bags to the ground – not to mention drink cans...
Even sometimes we were able to see squirrels, something that got our students
more immersed in nature.

We used to go to the town outskirt forests and
countryside. As I said on a previous post, running school excursions was great
and generally all of us came back to school joyful, after a day in close
contact with nature, our surrounding nature. We teachers must educate our
students in taking care of the environment and even beyond that point: all the
world! / Photo from: fish, water, sea, underwater, divers, photo sedayejavedan
persiangig com

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

I don’t know where
the thing below is from but it might be good posting I guess. I found it among
my old Word documents. Do you have any idea where it may come from? I like it.

“Professional
work [is] a reality distinct from mere intellectual or manual activity, or even
of work considered as a force that transforms nature. It is, undoubtedly, a
richer concept, one related to professional vocation, which a person has
regarding a particular kind of work rooted in his or her aptitudes, tastes,
gifts, virtues, etc.”

Smiling helps students
get motivated. Smiling has the power of creating a nice atmosphere.

Besides, we
teachers must be peace and joy sowers in our classrooms and the whole school,
also among our colleagues and parents and families...

Even smiling gives
seriousness to the lesson, paradoxically... Also we teachers have to notice if
the activities are going smooth; otherwise if an activity gets blocked and
prevents from rather a quick pace we could skip the exercise with our expertise,
our abilities and our skills.

The teacher is the main source and resource for
the lessons and they have no substitution, for example by a robot (so far, but I
guess teachers will always be necessary…).

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

It may be sensible to take our students to an excursion for instance
to the countryside. In that way they’ll see us teachers in a different context
than school, and this may be educative too!

I used to take them to an excursion
in the former schools where I taught, and those trips turned out to be good.
The excursions used to take morning through evening, and we returned home
so happy. Some of them took place in May, with nice weather and to a shrine or
chapel of the Virgin Mary. At that place we said some prayers and spent the
rest of the day by enjoying that day off.

Also those opportunities were okay
because you could observe the kids in a different context too and you got to
know them better. Even though those travels were leisure we teachers tried to
keep discipline, but in a more relaxed way.

As well they were a chance for the
kids to get to know us teachers better. Those chances were enriching all in
all. Something not that positive was that we teachers had to be cautious a few
of our students would not take some liquor with them, because they were
underage… But the whole thing was nice.

Something remarkable was that the
excursions with boys aged 13-14 showed that some of them were so childish
still, whereas some of them were quite adolescents and they liked to do things
not that childish. We chartered a bus and even the relationships with the
driver were nice, although some of them just took us to place and returned
after that until the time they had to pick us up back home.

I keep nice
remembrances of those excursions, more now that spring is at the threshold. Oh
and we learned from the boys things like how to fish river crabs! / Photo from:
school_excursion Flight Centre

We could consider the
school as our students’ home extension. Ultimately what we teachers do is to
help parents and families educate their children.

As a result we will address
our students by their proper names or family names if they aren’t too buddy-like…
To transform the school into their home extension – but we teachers are not our
students’ buddies – we should keep in touch with their parents and families.

So
we could call parents to school at least three times a school year, but it’d
better if we could talk with them each month or each two months, and have
tutoring sessions with them. We should count on parents and maybe on elder
siblings alike for the education enterprise.

At those tutorials we could tackle
what their parents and families want us to insist more on. Even in some cases
we’ll make parents and families become aware they should think of education
with more interest and concern because they might be too indifferent and
unmoved!

Although we may have many students, thanks to tutoring sessions with
parents we’ll get to know their children better: you understand what a student
is like also when you meet his parents, is that so? I guess yes. And though we
may have a lot of students we’ll ascertain what to demand from each student a
bit more.

Thus said and as a consequence we’ll consider our students a bit more
like they were our own children, and I’ve seen this in quite many cases! We’re
concerned about our students and their world. / Photo from: working-dad
Stay-at-Home-Dads

Monday, March 6, 2017

Today I’m saying that the teacher’s authority
must lean on both gentleness and firmness. The teacher must be gentle and firm
with those students who may be misbehaving and bothering and disturbing us and the
rest of the class too. Think of it, gentleness but firmness at the same time.

We
teachers are developing our professional work during the lesson, and that must
be respected, yes sir, it must.

If we teachers tolerate some disruptive
behaviors we could have some problems at classes. But if our students see we’re
easy but firm in denouncing what’s wrong, they’ll respect us more and more. And
let’s continue with our professional way of teaching during the lesson, which
is something very serious.

Also we could combine seriousness with smiling too.
We show ourselves as serious and willing to help our students in their learning
process, okay, and while we’re conducting the lesson in that way and things are
going rather smooth we can smile so as to underline and stress our carrying out
the class in a professional way. Smiling can be very serious, let’s say.

Our
students will see we’re firm if our whole conducting, also in our private lives
is upright and honest: we can only give what we have, and we can’t give anything we falter
in our lives! / Photo from: ophthalmologist-or-optometrist-for-eye-care
Berkeley Eye Center. I posted a picture that shows a job carried out with great
professionalism.

Saturday, March 4, 2017

We teachers can make
grammar presentations, and our students will appreciate it, okay. However we second or foreign language teachers can ask our students
to make those presentations, by working in groups. We’d mark them a deadline
and they’ve got to prepare a grammar point presentation.

It’s sound to have our
kids work in groups, for they’ll have to work as a team in their future lives,
right? And they could obtain that grammar information in the Internet, their
iPads or textbooks. But we’ve got to teach them how to work as a group – by the
way remember that grammar is like the language skeleton: it serves the purpose
of helping in our students’ gaining communicative competences.

I would recommend
groups of three people: I consider that four is too much and their work could result
as blurred or lost among themselves – when three they may be more responsible.

I’ve
written on this blog about group working. They could choose with whom they’d
like to stay as a group, but maybe some teacher’s intervention could be
necessary. I’m thinking of those poor students with whom nobody would work
with. And in this case those poor students could work with some high-achievers,
who could afford the task of monitoring those low-achievers. And the
high-achievers could enrich their personalities by accepting some low-achiever
in their team.

If high-achievers are aware that they’ve got to help the
student+teacher learning community they’ll better their personality, as I said.
I’ve seen so nice cases.

We could take aside two high-achievers and let them
know they could assist and help such or such low-achiever: he needs help and
they together can mature a lot.

So as to finish I will say that the common work
they’re going to carry out could be accomplished at the school library or they can meet
together at the town library, if the case. I mean this because group-working is
rather time-consuming and the students could attain their goal by working
as an extra-school activity. / Photo from: hedgefundcertification com. the
picture may show a working-team of a corporation.

Friday, March 3, 2017

Phew! I’ve
invested a nice great effort lately on my blog. It’d be great it would help you
teachers, busy teachers, who are the ones that publish and read from
TeacherLingo.

I’d like today to say that kids grow up without stridencies when
there’s love at home. In that way they can learn, because they can work and
study. Kids need their parents’ love plus all their family’s love. Otherwise
they will learn with scarcities.

At school we teachers will achieve and attain
to also educate them if we love them, with benevolence love, which means to
wish what’s good for them (bene-volence). They’ll be able to recall us easily
if we loved them with that benevolence love. Also if we were demanding toward
them, if we asked from them and at the same time we gave them knowledge and
gaining competences for their future.

What teachers can we remember the most?
So love to our students, but never overprotection, neither at home nor at
school. You tell me that in large families there’s less risk at applying
overprotection, okay then. / Photo from: multiflying Dogtime. I posted that
picture just because it’s a nice illustration. And many families have dogs...